Happy Day
by Cotto
Summary: This is a 'victory party' celebration by Willow's synagogue congragation, as they survived the collapse of Sunnydale, California. It is intended to be a gentle and largely loving story- a far break from the usual of mine: Warfare and or Crime stories. This is designed to be a happy little story- pretty much rated PG.


**Happy Day.**

_**By James Carmody.**_

**Pairing: **Willow/Kennedy

**Genre:** Friendship/Supernatural-Preternatural-Spiritual (develops into a platonic love story)

**Disclaimer:** Buffy, the entire franchise; including all stories, are the property of Joss Whedon, I only claim this plot. He owns the characters and series! I will not accept any monetary recompense for this work. It is just for fun, my own and everybody else's.

**Author's Notes: **Rabbi Micah is Willow's Rabbi, and he's her friend and spiritual advisor too, and kind of like a 'secondary father' to her… like her in my works, he's a Messianic Jew; he believes that Jesus of Nazareth is the True Messiah, he just sticks to Judaism as his faith- figuring that "if it is good enough for the Lord, it's good enough for me".

This story takes place after the episode "Chosen", so it'd be in season 8. Please do read, review, and enjoy!

**Chapter 1.): Synagogue Party!**

**Author's Notes for Chapter:** Just as the Jewish celebration of Passover is a celebration of "We survived and were rescued", this would be a sort-of 'mini-Passover' for that parish, a "Hey, we survived the worst that Hell could throw at us!" kind of deal. Sort of like the attempted genocide at the end of the enslavement of the Hebrews in Exodus.

Willow had very mixed feelings about what was coming up, on the one hand, she was happy to have found out that her entire home congregation had escaped the 'collapse' of her home town _"Well, the culture was based on sin."_ the 20something Jewess thought to herself with a grim smile, as she sat in her hotel room. On the other hand, she was very concerned about something… _"What if my Rabbi finds out I'm involved with a girl again? That can't be good for my friendship with him, but he's like another dad to me."_ she thought. They were going to have a big party- a bit like a 'Passover party' if you please, it's a 'hey! We survived!' celebration, and she Really wanted to go, but on the other hand, she loved Kennedy, her girlfriend, and didn't want her to feel left out.

Roughly ten-o'clock that night, Willow made her decision; she would invite Kennedy to the party! After all, she loved Kennedy, and she loved her fellow parishioners… why not have Both together? Granted, she would have to brief her girl on mannerisms in a Jewish celebration, but it could be fun, and besides: Kennedy had told Willow of her religious background, why not share with her Willow's? Dialing her girlfriend's room number on the phone, she heard her friend pick up the phone and answer "Kennedy, who's this?" "Kenn, it's Will." the redhead responded happily. "Hey" she continued to talk to the Raven-haired beautiful Latina "I just found out that my Synagogue is going to have a "we survived" party, want to come?" Willow asked. Kennedy started wrapping the telephone cord around her left pointer finger, with her right hand holding the phone, as she talked to her girlfriend. "Do I?" the Latina asked her Jewess girlfriend, then answered "Oh, Yeah!" with delight and emphasis, to show her joy to her friend. "I've got the brochure here, the party starts at 10:00am sharp, but we can be there anytime, Lunch is at Noon, activities include: games, sports, et cetera… it's a regular picnic! Leaving time is at latest by 4pm." Willow explained. Willow was in her long pajamas, whereas Kennedy was in what she referred to as her 'sleep-shorts' a style she enjoyed wearing. After some friendly chit-chat, the redhead decided to take-charge "Well, we'll need to get some sleep… love you." she told her friend "love you." Kennedy responded. This cycle threatened to continue in an infinite loop of those two words (love you) until both women realized that it would; at which an anomaly occurred: Both ladies told eachother "Bye." and hung up simultaneously.

The next day, Willow was standing in the hotel lobby at 9:00am with most of her weight on her left leg, looking at her watch, she had let her hair grow out to just about shoulder-length, and had her red hair in a pony-tail that wasn't too tight, she had a grim smile on her face, and was wondering where her girlfriend was at. About that time, Kennedy walked down the stairs into the lobby, her black hair was in a bright red baseball cap, and she looked like she was dressed for a workout, but respectfully decent. Willow was wearing her yellow (mostly) outfit of long sleeve shirt and long pants, when she noticed a stray lock of hair hanging near Kennedy's eyes. Walking up to her girlfriend, she took her right hand and gently brushed her girlfriend's hair lock back behind the Latina's left ear, then asked her "Are you ready?" "Let's go." Kennedy responded, happily. She had her baseball bat and glove with her too, and a big smile plastered on her face, as well as wearing her running outfit too: shorts, sporting socks, sneakers, decent top, most of her other gear was in her backpack, and her bat was resting on her left shoulder with her glove on its thick tip. She smiled at her friend, happily.

Willow briefed her quickly on the mannerisms for a Jewish party, and told her that this is a playtime party, basically. "We can be friends, but not much else today." she told her friend as Kennedy drove to the site and Willow navigated, directing her to the park her parish had rented the use thereof for its celebration.

The whole thing was a cookout and gaming place today. After the car had been parked, the Latina picked up her gear out of the back and set out hiking to see what she could do for fun first. An impromptu game of either softball or baseball was getting set up; and this was just up Kennedy's alley! She loved ballgames- playing them, that is, she had always been an athlete as long as she could remember, and this fit right in with her mindset. One reason she did so well in school was her gym classes, in fact. All the running and jumping she did and workouts she did kept her metabolism high and allowed her to think fast when needed- In fact: Kennedy was really at the height of her physical beauty, which had lasted for a surprisingly long time in her young life… but many of the people here did not know of the ugliness of her actions with other girls in recent years- she surely didn't recognize that fact yet., so why in the world would she say it out loud to anybody else anywhere?

As Willow looked around to see who was where, and looked for something to eat for lunch soon; she spotted someone she desperately wanted to talk to today: Rabbi Micah, seated there on some kind of platform sticking out in-between the overgrown undergrowth of uncut land beyond the play areas of the park and the 'settled areas' of the park. This was a severe difference in psychological approach between him and her: she hated what she called "colonial imperialism" in history, whereas he on the other hand, seemed to love it! If she were to describe his mental doctrines of how to wage a war against sin, she would classify it as the "plantation system" of using "settlements" inside an enemy's domain to destroy his rule over the area. This was largely not a fight between them over ethics in goals, but over definitions of what is ethical to begin with and how to do what. She just didn't see things the same way he did, and that is that.

Willow was bothered by something, something profound for her. She quickly sought him out to try to talk about what bothered her about her past, and called to him when she was certain he could see her in range, but not necessarily in line of sight, as she was behind him and to his left just a bit.

The whole image of what he conveyed here was as an alpha male lion watching over his pride of followers; and the analogy was not all that far off either! As a pastor, he fit in the role very nicely.

What Micah had done was to take up a form of an 'observation post' right out in the open, where he could see almost everybody anywhere in the park, or practically so. "_Almost a lifeguard in role."_ Willow thought to herself, and she wasn't off at all about his role in that community. He was to his right of the party area, and watching the dragonflies flit amongst the foliage in the uncut land quite contentedly._ "There must be some standing water in the shade of that vegetation"_ he considered _"in order to support those dragonflies, as they don't like to go too far from water sources."_ Some of the vegetation was about six feet high, and it was pretty thick, especially the horsetails there.

Rabbi Micah had an interest in natural sciences for most of his life- and this factored into and developed into his interest in ontology- the study of what one might call 'spiritual species'. From his conversations with Willow, he had learned she had the same innate curiosity about meta-physics as he did, and 'spiritual species' too, but he suspected she had gone badly astray in her pursuit of knowledge- one thing that frightened him about what she was doing profoundly. "NOT all spirits are good." he had warned her when he learned of her interest in the topic of the mystical. And he prayed she had learned that lesson by now- before it had gotten too late!

The platform he was seated in a chair on looked kind of like a gazebo without a roof or poles to support a roof, but a nice white fence around its outer edge. Willow took a seat nearby him, and facing his left side, and requested to talk to him. He had a strong idea that she wanted to confess something that was troubling her deeply, but wondered what it was more intensely than his anger towards her was regarding her misbehavior, whatever that was this time. Boy was he in for a surprise about what she had done in the past few years! That would _**not**_ be pleasant to go through! If he reacted badly to finding out that Willow had raped her girlfriend, he'd react even worse to learning she had tried to kill off the entire human race! _"But that's part of being a cleric," _he realized _"I've got to deal with the dark side of people. And I can't shirk at that at all!"_ he was a little nervous, but his spiritual child was clearly in need of his help, so he asked her what the matter was. He wasn't telepathic, but he _was_ just incredibly intuitive, and could tell that something was _really_ bugging her; even worse than when she had admitted to having raped her girlfriend.

Her response disturbed him greatly. He had already been able to piece together that Kennedy was Willow's girlfriend, and upon seeing her run yet another home run, Rabbi Micah was frankly impressed with her stamina and physical gifts. "I don't blame you for liking her" he told Willow watching her girlfriend high-five her teammates in the game "she really is quite a physical beauty." "And loyal too, which is what appealed to me, she doesn't give up on anybody!" Willow responded "In fact, she's the one I want to talk to you about, specifically, me and her." _"Ah crud! She's at it again."_ Rabbi Micah thought grimly smiling _"Better try a different tack here, the smash-next-subjugate-and-then-develop approach isn't working; the error is in her mind, __**not**__ outside trying to get in."_ Rabbi Micah calculated as Willow continued her story.

"I know I should love her" Willow was saying "but every time I look at her, it _twinges_, Rabbi, right _here_!" and Willow lifted her left hand towards her head, specifically the back thereof, and making a claw with each finger separate, she pointed at her head if the back of her head hurt. "It _hurts_ to look at her, because I remember what I nearly did to that beautiful American Princess- how I nearly killed her." Willow explained to him.

He then told her something that shocked her immensely: "It should hurt, that's good." Willow was disturbed- he was supposed to be a secondary type of daddy to her, not someone who hurts her, or is glad she hurts! "It's good because you're still spiritually alive in that area. Pain in reference to a fight is a sign of life- if you hurt yourself and don't feel it… then worry, worry a lot! But if you hurt, be happy, for because you hurt, your nerves are sending messages to the brain, and you still have command over that domain of your body to function correctly. Same with your conscience and soul. It ought to bother you if you tried to murder her." he told her, and she began to realize what he was talking about, he was talking about the fact that because she was bothered by this; she was still eligible for Paradise. This was a massive relief to her, that she was still able to be a wholesome woman.

In a previous conversation between them, he had suggested, and she had agreed, that at heart she was something of a dictator in regards to her personality, this being due to her brilliant mind, and the inclination to see others as either incompetent or simply weak so common in such a mindset or personality type. She felt that she couldn't trust them to hold, or to be smart enough to do the job right, and just couldn't shake this perspective; so she'd have to just live with it, and resist it often enough. He then used this perspective to enlighten her "Willow, if you do consider yourself a ruler, then consider this: if a leader won't have their critics near them, and by that, I mean in their council; then they're doomed to inaccurate information. This is why you should be happy that your conscience bothers you about what you did to her- Kennedy- it is because the 'couriers' are telling you that an enemy is inside your boarders. In a physical body, that is the role of the nerve cells, in the soul, it is the role of the conscience to tell you if something you've done is wrong; and regardless of your and her lifestyle, attempting to _kill_ her is definitely wrong!" he said. "I see, so my 'messenger service' is telling me that I did something horrible to her, and that opened the gate to the Evil One's army." was her response. "Pretty much, Willow, but there's still time. Here's what you should do: you most definitely _should_ love her, but as a fellow daughter of God." he said. Kennedy meanwhile made yet another home-run, and high-fived her teammates afterwards, she was truly loving this ballgame.

"Willow, any interaction between the two of you that is _chaste_ is morally acceptable, but it has to be chaste in intent too." he said, before continuing "I know that you tend to fall in love with females, and make no mistake: loving females is _not wrong_, but any kind of gay sex is most definitely wrong!" he said. These conversations were rarely pleasant between them, but the truth always has a level of love in it, and she was intensely relieved to detect his rather paternal love of her.

As the two of them started walking down a nature-hike path near the pavilion he had been staying on for the time, they ran across a set of ant-lion traps, and a column of ants walking in-between these pits. Right about then, Kennedy caught up with her girlfriend, and Rabbi Micah, she wanted to see what was going on, and the game had finished- the score was unimportant, but the important thing was that they'd had fun. As they watched, one ant started to slip towards the bottom of one of the traps, where the hidden larval predator awaited it with open jaws. The small terrestrial wasp (what an ant really is) didn't go into this trap very happily- it fought as hard as it possibly could! The ant had only fallen in about a quarter of the way, and started to climb back out of the death-trap. It didn't know what awaited it at the center of this slippery pit, but it did know by instinct that it had to get out as quickly as it could from the area that had sunken into the ground in this area- this wasn't a safe area for it to be in.

Almost immediately the infantile predator went into action and proceeded to attack the ant that had fallen into its, for lack of a better word, larder. A series of jets of sand shot out from the area of the center of the tiny pit, four of them to be exact, and struck the walls near the desperate ant that was trying with all its abilities to climb out of this pit- to the ant, this definitely _wasn't_ natural! Some_thing_ was acting upon the area to make it do this, and the terrified arthropod didn't want to be in the area at all when the creature at the bottom of the pit was revealed, sure if the entire column fought as one, they'd easily dismember this tiny nemesis of theirs, but that wasn't their way, to ants, any individual is expendable- it is the _colony_ that matters! It was clear to all the humans watching this scene that neither of these natural predators would come into the other's domain willingly, so the one who got tired first would lose the battle. If the ant tired first, it'd fall into the pit, and her 'sisters' would pass her by for dead, and the ant-lion would eat to his heart's content, and throw away the remains, but if the ant-lion tired first, the ant would escape the trap.

This scene was upsetting to the young females, they didn't like to see a creature fighting to stave off death so ferociously, and grieved in their hearts for the ant, who seemed doomed. But the entire scene also reminded them of another encounter with something they called "The First", which Willow next proceeded to bring up in conversation with her Rabbi. As her mentioning of her sins was done, the presence of this other 'erring princess' didn't bother Micah one bit. He genuinely thought it was an opportunity to do some further good for his Lord- as the opportunity to get the errant Latina to behave herself too was also desirable to him- one reason he had not protested one bit with her coming to the picnic. "This reminds me of an encounter with something that was referred to as "the first evil", do you know what that could possibly be, Rabbi?" Willow asked, and when she was asked to describe what this thing said and did in said encounter- which Rabbi Micah was profoundly scared and alarmed in regards to, this set off a most peculiar response, with both of these women talking to him almost simultaneously, but what he could make out of it was that the being had at least twice seemed to jump dimensions, was non-corporeal, and had an _extremely_ malevolent personality, as well as being _very_ frightening to deal with- almost on a preternatural level.

"I'd _strongly_ advise you to stay _away_ from that _**thing**_." he said, deeply terrified for his fellow humans, he now strongly suspected that this being was in fact the Devil, mainly due to the aforementioned happily psychopathically cruel personality- that matched the profile to a T. "Not really a possibility, as it can find any human whenever it wants, but doesn't seem able to inflict bodily harm upon humans yet on its own." Kennedy said, speaking up, she didn't remember most of her Catechism training from her childhood, but she did remember some details now that frightened her right to the core _"Just like the ant in the pit, I'm terrified of some mysterious predator."_ Kennedy thought to herself, scared to her very core of what was going on in her life. Kennedy wanted a loving and safe world, not something deadly like this was going to become fast if things weren't done, and promptly. What she dreamed of was a world where she had a sisterly relationship with everybody, not a world where beings killed and mutilated one-another at the drop of a hat and hurt each-other for fun!

"Then my fears are confirmed, it was the Evil One that visited you in that home, but it cannot destroy you without your direct assistance, it can _tempt_ you into wickedness, and then it has the ability to truly _hurt_ you; but to destroy you it has to get you to betray morality- then and only then can it get what it wants: your soul as it's slave for all eternity- just like the Ssi-Ruuk in Star Wars, the Adversary tends to rely upon what might be called 'soul labor', a form of slave-labor, but unending. So, if it causes your death without acquiring your allegiance, then it's lost the war in your sector, for it _cannot_ then get what it wants, for all eternity!" he told them.

"So, the only escape is death then… that's just grim." Kennedy said, she was really enjoying this material because she could understand it, and so what if she didn't like the _message_, the _idea_ was right up her alley of fighting to defend her loved ones from this evil tyrant! She had her own personal vendetta with this evil spirit, as 'he' had ordered the death of her father- a man whom she loved more deeply than life itself! The pretty Latina perceived this entity as a cruel mixture of Al Capone and Joe Stalin combined in the worst ways, and she _really_ had it in for this vicious entity! Kennedy so often cried whenever she remembered her father that it confused Willow as to why she would want to recall him in the first place, but her crying was largely cathartic, she liked to remember his personality for some odd reason that escaped her too. It actually felt good to her to weep over the death of her daddy, and she never could understand why, but for the life of her she seemed to delight in such an activity.

By sheer co-incidence, both Willow and Kennedy, and Micah too were thinking that if just one of the ants would extend a leg, the ant in the pit would be able to escape for certain. Then it hit all of them: that's exactly what he was doing, and what a cleric's job is to do, to be the one who 'extends the leg' and allows others to escape what the Messiah had called 'the doodlebug' in scripture and tradition- the Evil One won't get someone as easily who has an associate who is willing to risk themselves to rescue their friends and neighbors from its grasp!

In the end of the fight, due to the insects' nature, no other ant would risk its life to rescue its sister (all ants that you are likely to see are girls), but the ant in the pit was too close to the lip of the pit to be eaten, as it was able to get out, and the ant-lion larva couldn't, or wouldn't attempt to climb out to attack the ant in the upper pit, especially not with its friends nearby, and thereby expose itself to attack, so the two of them parted ways.

Rabbi Micah then used this example to illustrate a metaphysical concept to them. "As the ant escaped, its unlikely to be willing to go back to this trap so long as it remembers what lurks under the sand, but ants have a very short memory, far shorter than humans… this may play into its benefit, for it helps to prevent addiction." he explained "Addictions are usually very bad, I've had them, and let me tell you- they're _**not**__ fun_! I still deal with the remnants of an addiction to the occult, what you called 'telephoning the mob', Rabbi" Willow interjected, then continued "and it may crop up at any time!" she said, now with her resolve-face on. This was a major rift-cause between Willow and her friends: Rabbi Micah was very critical of her for dealing with the occult, her Scooby friends rather liked having a magically inclined friend who could 'trouble-shoot' their issues in a type of assistance, and Will needed to be helpful to her friends, Kennedy thought it was rather 'nifty' having a lover who was a witch, and this scared Willow, for she knew what she was doing wasn't safe at all! On the contrary, the only reason why she still did so willingly was that she felt the need to sacrifice herself to keep her loved ones safe. "If the ant had a human memory, don't you think it might become addicted to challenging the ant-lion?" he asked the young women. "And that's just a hypothetical question to consider- why do you think Yahweh gave the ant an ant's mind, and not a mind that can comprehend the preternatural, and some of the supernatural mysteries of eternity too?, if it isn't for the sake of some other task that the ant has an ant's mind." Now the criticism was undeniably clear to them: sinful behaviors are means of 'playing' with demons- and I mean true demons, and that is _never_ safe for a human in the long run.

Kennedy looked extremely upset with this criticism of her lifestyle- she _knew_ it was wrong for her to be sleeping with other girls, but she tended to like to do so anyways. She looked like she wanted to hit Micah for suggesting it, but Willow got in front of her, and held her arms, and told her "I need to hear that, I know, I don't like to hear that I've been a bad girl, but when I have been one, I need to hear it. I needed to speak to him because" now Willow started to look like she was about to cry, and placing her head on Kenny's shoulder, she whimpered to her "I tried to kill you."

**Author's Notes End Chapter:** I was likely to make this one a one-chapter deal, but I've decided to extend it, the next chapter will be "Willow comes clean" or something like that, and will deal with Willow explaining to Kennedy how she almost killed her before they ever met.


End file.
